Google Wallet is coming out of retirement. Four years after Google rolled out the concept that it could streamline all digital payment activities within Google Pay, or G Pay, the company is bringing its first Wallet brand back to do another thing.
At its annual Google I/O Developers Conference on Wednesday, Google announced that it is relaunching Google Wallet as a place to store transit, travel, loyalty and health care credentials, which are available on Google Pay. It is serving as a companion app for the ,
According to Arnold Goldberg, vice president and general manager of payments at Google, the move addresses the growing number of digital credentials, including transit and event tickets, vaccination cards and other records, that are cluttering the Google Pay experience.
The latest turning point in Google Wallet’s history – since its launch in 2011 as the first mobile wallet baked into a smartphone’s operating system – follows Google’s years of challenges in finding a secure way to support device-based payments. follows.
“The pandemic was one of the catalysts for the latest change with Google Wallet, when we saw merchants go digital and experienced the acceleration of digitization for everyday essentials, so we created two separate apps: Google Wallet. For things you’ll keep with you. Your Wallet and Google Pay only for payment-related activities,” Goldberg said.
The change is effective immediately in the US, bringing Google’s Wallet and payments ecosystem closer to alignment with Apple’s, which years ago created a Wallet app to store digital credentials to use for Apple Pay transactions.
The original logo (left) of Google Wallet and the 2022 revision.
Bloomberg News, Google
Google said the separation of Google Wallet from Google Pay paves the way for Google to follow Apple by collaborating with US and international partners to bring digital driver licenses and IDs to Google Wallet later this year.
The company said Google plans to enable developers to add digital IDs to Google Wallet for office and hotel key access, while it also allows developers to use QR codes or passwords to enable many of these features for older phones. It is paving the way for making bar codes, the company said.
Google also announced the launch of a tokenized virtual card within Google Pay, improving security for in-app payments and building on its existing auto-fill process for online purchases. The virtual cards will be available starting this summer with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Capital One cards, encrypting account data for better security and ease of use. Once a Google Pay user has enrolled a card, users have the option of making the card virtual and with no need to re-enter the card’s security code, streamlining checkout later.
Within Google Pay, users can now send peer-to-peer payments, split payments, and pay businesses digitally or via NFC. They can also receive cash-back rewards from retailers and brand marketers, with all transaction activity reflected within the Google Pay app.
“We are not a bank, nor do we have any intention of becoming one, but we are all about connecting different providers of services with the consumers who are using them,” Goldberg said.
As more industries digitize processes and assets, Google Wallet could become the go-to app for more daily activities, which will be added, he said.
“Working with other platforms and integrators, we are creating experiences where you add a transit card to your wallet, and [Google] Maps it will show up with the current balance on the card,” Goldberg said.
The latest move brings Google Wallet back to a more central role within the Android experience. Initially Google Wallet was a payments app that supported only Citi-branded MasterCard on Sprint handsets, and it struggled with hardware makers for adoption. Google later created a software-based “host card emulation” mode to address handset security issues with Google Wallet.
Then came Android Pay, which Google launched in 2015 as its primary in-store digital payment mode, while Google Wallet was relegated to a P2P payment feature.
In 2018 Google replaced Android Pay with Google Pay, completely eliminating Google Wallet until now, when the requirement required separation of payment-specific activities from an increasing number of digital credentials.
Google isn’t worried about consumer confusion over the latest Switch.
“What was more confusing was the way consumers had to put non-payment-related things [like transit tickets] In Google Pay, and now they have a separate app for those things,” Goldberg said.
